January is always a time to refresh, reset, reimagine, repurpose. If you are a business seeking to reach a new customer base or concerned that you are losing relevance to your existing customers, a time to review your brand.
With lockdown 3 causing a slowdown in operations across many sectors, now is an opportune moment to bring some of the bigger projects off the shelf to be tackled for the longer-term strategic success of the business. Does your brand still articulate who you are, what your business can offer its customers and what makes you different?
Some businesses and organisations may even come to the realisation that a business needs a wholesale rebrand.
This could be when a business has evolved, and the existing brand has limited connection with customers it would like to reach. It could be that the current branding it is outdated and recollects a past era, either with colours or fonts that have fallen from favour.
Sometimes a rebrand can almost be forced on a business – when its reputation has been hit by some bad press or a poor reputation. It is also critical for any successful business to clearly articulate how it is different from its competition, its brand must therefore stand apart.
If it does not, then it can cause confusion and risk its relationship with customers, worse still, lose them to a similarly branded rival.
A brand has many elements beyond simply a logo, colour scheme and fonts – although those are a crucial part of the brand’s identity. It’s vision, values, narrative, tone of voice and messaging are all elements to be fed into a brand and bring clarity to what you deliver.
One of the most iconic rebrands of recent years is Compare the Market’s introduction of Alekxandr Orlov, the Russian Meerkat. The attention to the backstory and the clever use of the business name’s close resemblance to the much-loved creatures was a wholesale winner.
In the sporting world, one of the most contentious brand alterations was Cardiff City FC. Known as the Bluebirds with and 104 year history, their kit was changed from blue to red at the behest of new Malaysian owner Vincent Tan in 2012.
In overriding the club’s history, the clubs fans were alienated, a disconnect was created between the club and their audience and – inevitably, the kit sales plummeted. Three years later and the club reverted to their traditional colours.
A brand that has made subtle shifts over the years is market-leading crisps Walkers. Without jarring loyal customers, they have consistently evolved to stay relevant. Their most recent incorporates a subtle Union Jack in the background of the logo to communicate the brand’s ‘Britishness’.
If you are interested in a brand review, contact the team at Fruit Marketing – we have experience of managing some of the UK’s most prominent travel, food and drinks, leisure and professional services brands.
Stories create connections between people – they appeal to our emotions. No one is immune to a gripping tale. Whose ears haven’t pricked up or moved to the edge of their seat when someone says “Hey, I’ve got a good story for you.”?
People are emotional beings and their behaviour reflects it, including what they buy and what they don’t buy. Being a distant, faceless business with a good product has never been enough, particularly in today’s digital landscape. So many options are at the end of our fingertips, screaming for you attention, a little human touch goes a long way.
Who are you? What makes you tick? What’s your story? How do I connect with you? Finally, why should I give you my hard-earned money?
A brand’s narrative is a critical part of any organisation’s branding strategy. It must be grounded in truths – authenticity is essential. Every brand must have a clear purpose meeting needs of people. It needs to be relatable to win hearts over and create an emotional bond and loyalty between the brand and the consumer.
A good narrative gives your customers reason to buy your product or service. Every brand has an interesting story behind it, it just needs to be effectively and engagingly articulated. A great brand narrative can maximise your business’s reach, engagement, impact and profit.
Apple are a great example of a brand whose story has enabled it to become a market leader.
Apple still has a lot of the DNA of its co-founder and former CEO, the late Steve Jobs embedded its brand narrative, be it covertly or overtly. Despite being a multi-billion dollar corporation, it still has a brand that evokes a slightly maverick, but entrepreneurial spirit with an obsession to put the users (customers) needs first.
It is still a brand that commands enormous loyalty from its audience, that few others in the tech industry emulate. Largely, it’s down to its story. They have built a connection with their customers and from that, an enormous business.
Turtle Tots is one of the world’s leading baby and toddler swim schools. With over 50 franchises across the UK and Ireland, it is a network of successful businesses that helps thousands of families by teaching babies and toddlers the benefits of swimming.
Launched in Bristol in 2011 by founders Caroline Sparks and Gabby Lixton, the business quickly grew with the franchise model enabling others to build their own flexible and rewarding businesses.
Their award-winning programme, begins with aqua-natal yoga lessons for mums-to-be, and continues with specialist and progressive baby swimming lessons from birth, and toddler/pre-school lessons. In 2019, around 13,000 babies and toddlers swam every week with Turtle Tots.
Every Turtle Tots teacher is trained to the highest international standards with Swim England or the Swimming Teachers Association (STA) and is endorsed by Professor Greg Whyte OBE, Olympian and Sports Scientist and board member at Sport Relief and Comic Relief.
Turtle Tots makes a difference in the lives of every family it touches. But they go a step further, every single franchise donates at least 1% of their revenue to charity.
Fruit Marketing has been proud to work with Turtle Tots for nearly three years, including developing Local Marketing Guidelines for each franchisee and delivering national campaigns for their classes. From 2018 to 2019, we helped increase their weekly client base by 11% and their year on year revenue by 11.7%.
As with anyone operating in the leisure industry, 2020 has been a challenging year for Turtle Tots. But they were recently awarded the gold award at the prestigious Approved Franchise Association 2020 Awards. With strong foundations in place, it is a business that is expected to bounce back strongly in 2021.
Co-founder Caroline Sparks said: “Fruit have been able to offer us the experience and knowledge that our franchising business model requires. Not only do they have a vast amount of experience in the sector, they creatively put together and manage our consumer campaigns, and perhaps more importantly are able to produce meaningful statistics showing the return on investment of our campaigns.
“On a personal level, it’s a pleasure to work with them, and I would have no hesitation in recommending their expertise and services.”
We define it as promoting your products or services to your target market in an engaging way, that defines, differentiates, and converts.
Effective marketing boils down to the very simple principle of “right message – right time – right channel – right audience.” Actually, you can add an ‘s’ to all of those.
At Fruit, we believe in a multi-channel approach and a rule of seven; that means that people will typically respond to a marketing message when they have seen or heard it seven times.
Of course, one size does not fit all. The same message at the same time on the same channel to the same audience will not reap the same rewards across business and across brands. There is no silver bullet for marketing. We wish it were that simple.
Marketing must be tailored specifically to each business, their objectives, a particular product or service and their customer profiles. A simple example is the Unilever brands Dove and Lynx, which utilise very contrasting approaches. One is softer, subtle with body positive content, the other is cheekier and more overtly sexual. We do not need to explain which is which.
If you need some support and guidance on crafting your marketing strategy and operations, please contact Fruit for a no-obligations consultation. We can help you get it right too.
From their low-key base in South Devon, it might not be immediately obvious the national and international level of expertise that lies behind the boat house doors of SeaSports Southwest.
Little more than a stone skim away from the back beach in Teignmouth, this small enterprise is a Royal Yachting Association (RYA) and Adventure Activities Licensing Authority (AALA) certified water sports training centre.
They are one of UK’s premier Water Sports Centres, specialising in water-based experiences and training courses for beginners through to advanced and instructor level, covering power, sail and paddle water sports.
They are also the foremost training base for one of the world’s greatest endurance challenges. Billed as “The World’s Toughest Row”, the Talisker Whiskey Atlantic Challenge takes place every year with dozens of teams attempting to complete an arduous 3000-mile journey from the Canary Island to Antigua.
To ensure a safe and successful crossing, SeaSports Southwest is the centre that more teams entrust their training to than any other centre in the world. From 2013-2019, they have trained 61% of all race participants from 16 countries, including 15 who have won the race or broke a world record.
SeaSports Southwest have trained more ocean rowing teams than anyone else in the world and are the only recommended training centre from race organisers Atlantic Campaigns
Fruit Marketing have been proud to work with husband-and-wife team Sue and Tim, ably supported by Sam and not forgetting Bradley the dog, who have led operations at SeaSports Southwest since 2017.
It has been a time when the website and brand have been refreshed and relaunched and new communications, marketing and advertising plans have been activated. It has resulted in an increase in social media following of 212%, off-season sales growth of 200% and an overall revenue growth of 35% whilst reducing previous adverting and marketing costs.
Sue Cox, Owner & Managing Director at SeaSports Southwest said: “What really makes Jo (Fruit Co-founder) stand out is that she has worked tirelessly to understand our business inside out. She listens to us and consequently her advice to us is sound and her marketing campaigns are successful.”
Life is not always plain sailing, but together, SeaSports Southwest and Fruit Marketing are safely on an even keel.